BBC - Stoke & Staffordshire - History - Josiah Wedgwood Josiah the man But who WAS Josiah Wedgwood? Lynn Miller, from the Wedgwood Museum, tells us... Born at the Churchyard Works, Burslem, in 1730, Josiah Wedgwood commenced work as an independent potter, renting the Ivy House Works from his kinsmen (Thomas and John Wedgwood of the Big House, also in Burslem) from May Day 1759. So, May 1st 1759 - over 250 years ago - is the official birthday of the company. Through the perfection of his cream coloured earthenware body, he came to the attention of Her Majesty Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. For her, he made a tea and coffee service in his newly perfected ceramic. After this she not only allowed Wedgwood to style himself 'Potter to Her Majesty', but to call his newly developed cream-ware body, 'Queen's Ware', a name by which it is still known today. Etruria From there, things could only go up.

On 13 June 1769 Wedgwood threw six so-called 'First Day's Vases' in order to celebrate the opening of his new factory. This factory was in a specially created model industrial area, where workers and works were sited alongside each other in conditions that Josiah, a noted liberal, considered ideal for the time. The area, near what is now Hanley, was called 'Etruria' echoing the great pre-Roman Etruscan pottery region. In fact, the motto of the factory was 'Artes Etruriae Renascuntur' - 'The Arts of Etruria are reborn', and appeared on the First Day's Vases. Jasper The period of the Wedgwood and Bentley Ornamental Ware Partnership witnessed the introduction of a revolutionary new stoneware body, which Wedgwood was to christen Jasper. This was probably the most significant innovation in ceramic history since the Chinese discovery of porcelain - nearly one thousand years earlier! Josiah had an eye for beauty, and employed many notable artists - including George Stubbs, John Flaxman Jnr and William Hackwood - to model and design bas-reliefs for use on this new ceramic body. Man of science...

Wedgwood was also noted for being a competent scientist. His invention of the pyrometer to measure the higher degrees of heat firing in the bottle kilns earned him the title of Fellow of the Royal Society (January 1783). In March 1786 he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and in October of the same year a Fellow of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Portland Vase In 1789 Wedgwood produced his first perfect copy of the renowned Portland or Barberini vase in the Jasper body. In 1790 Wedgwood took his three sons John, Josiah II and Thomas, and his nephew Thomas Byerley into partnership. (John and Tom resigned their partnerships in 1793). ...and of conscience He was also noted as a great philanthropist, and produced many copies of the small size so-called 'Slave Medallion'. 'Am I not a man and a brother?' The kneeling manacled figure of a slave, surmounted by a legend 'Am I not a Man and a Brother?', formed the seal of the Abolition of Slavery Movement.

Wedgwood's interpretation, in Jasper, in the form of a small sized medallion was freely distributed world-wide to his fellow supporters. (For more about the Slave Medallion, look for the link on the right-hand side of this webpage) Tributes over the years Following a short illness Josiah Wedgwood died on 3 January 1795, and was buried at the Church of St Peter ad Vincula in Stoke town centre. His marble memorial sculpted by John Flaxman Jnr was erected at this parish church in 1802, and can still be viewed there. On the monument a tribute states - 'He converted a rude and inconsiderable Manufactory into an elegant Art and an important part of the National Commerce'. Wedgwood's burial stone at St Peter's A most fitting tribute to this multi-talented individual was given in 1863 by William Ewart Gladstone, the prime minister who was also a collector of Wedgwood ware. He said of Josiah I '......that he was the greatest man who ever, in any age or country, applied himself to the important work of uniting art with industry'. Other dedications are in the form of statues.

The most notable is that outside Stoke railway station where the imposing figure greets all rail visitors to the city. Other figures and busts are to be found, naturally, at the Wedgwood Museum, which is on the same site as the present Wedgwood Factory in Barlaston in mid-Staffordshire. Lynn Miller **** Wedgwood Museum website The Wedgwood Museum website has details of the museum at Barlaston near Stoke on Trent. Click on the link below to have a look. Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood 1730-1795 English potter, whose works are among the finest examples of ceramic art. Wedgwood was born in Burslem , Staffordshire, on July 12, 1730, into a family with a long tradition as potters. At the age of nine, after the death of his father, he worked in his family's pottery. In 1759 he set up his own pottery works in Burslem. There he produced a highly durable cream-coloured earthenware that so pleased Queen Charlotte that in 1762 she appointed him royal supplier of dinnerware.

From the public sale of Queen's Ware , as it came to be known, Wedgwood was able, in 1768, to build near Stoke-on-Trent a village, which he named Etruria, and a second factory equipped with tools and ovens of his own design. At first only ornamental pottery was made in Etruria, but by 1773 Wedgwood had concentrated all his production facilities there. During his long career Wedgwood developed revolutionary ceramic materials, notably basalt and jasperware . In 1754 Wedgwood began to experiment with coloured creamware. He established his own factory, but often worked with others who did transfer printing (introduced by the Worcester Porcelain Company in the 1750s). He also produced red stoneware; basaltes ware, an unglazed black stoneware; and jasperware, made of white stoneware clay that had been coloured by the addition of metal oxides. Jasperware was usually ornamented with white relief portraits or Greek Classical scenes. Wedgwood's greatest contribution to European ceramics, however, was his fine pearlware, an extremely pale creamware with a bluish tint to its glaze.

Wedgwood's basalt, a hard, black, stone-like material known also as Egyptian ware or basaltes ware, was used for vases, candlesticks, and realistic busts of historical figures. Jasperware, his most successful innovation, was a durable unglazed ware most characteristically blue with fine white cameo figures inspired by the ancient Roman Portland Vase. Many of the finest designs were the work of the British artist John Flaxman. Wedgwood Jasper Ware of Wedgwood Artists The most famous artist Wedgwood employed at Etruria was the sculptor John Flaxman, whose wax portraits and other relief figures he translated into jasperware. Competitors Wedgwood's wares appealed particularly to the rising European bourgeois class, and porcelain and decorated and glazed earthenware factories suffered severely from competition from him. The surviving factories switched to the manufacture of creamware (called on the Continent faience fine or faience anglaise) to try to imitate and compete with Wedgwood. Even the great factories at Sï¿½vres, France, and at Meissen, Germany, found their trade affected.

Jasperwares were imitated in biscuit porcelain at Sï¿½vres, and Meissen produced a glazed version which they even called Wedgwoodarbeit. The Royal Society Wedgwood's invention of the pyrometer, a device for measuring high temperatures (invaluable for gauging oven heats for firings), earned him commendation as a fellow of the Royal Society. Timeline: The youngest child of the potter Thomas Wedgwood, Josiah came from a family whose members had been potters since the 1600's. Baptised July 12, 1730, Burslem , Stoke-on-Trent , England. 1739 After his father's death in 1739, he worked in the family business at Churchyard Works , Burslem, becoming exceptionally skilful at the potter's wheel. 1744 Became an apprentice to his elder brother Thomas. However an attack of smallpox seriously reduced his work (the disease later affected his right leg, which was then amputated); the result of this inactivity, enabled him to read, research, and experiment in his craft as a Master Potter.

1752-3 In 1749 Thomas (Josiah's elder brother) refused his proposal for partnership and Josiah formed a brief partnership with John Harrison at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire. 1754 Wedgwood formed a partnership with Thomas Whieldon of Fenton Low, Stoke-on-Trent, probably the leading potter of his day. This became a fruitful partnership, enabling Wedgwood to become a master of current pottery techniques. He then began what he called his "experiment book," an invaluable source on Staffordshire pottery. 1759 After inventing the improved green glaze which is still popular even today, Wedgwood finished his partnership with Whieldon and went into business for himself at the Ivy House factory in Burslem. 1762 On one of his frequent visits to Liverpool to arrange export of his ware, Wedgwood met the merchant Thomas Bentley. Because the sale of his ware had spread from the British Isles to the Continent, Wedgwood expanded his business to the nearby Brick House (or Bell Works) factory.

1765 Queen Charlotte's patronage of Wedgwood's cream-coloured earthenware in 1765, led the well finished earthenware which Wedgwood produced to be called Queen's ware . Queen's ware became, by virtue of its durable material and serviceable forms, the standard domestic pottery and enjoyed a worldwide market. 1768 The merchant Bentley became his partner in the manufacture of decorative items that were primarily unglazed stonewares in various colours, produced and decorated in the popular style of Neoclassicism. Chief among these wares were: - black basaltes , which by the addition of special painting (using pigments mixed with hot wax, which are burned in as an inlay), could be used to imitate Greek red-figure vases; and - jasper , a fine-grained vitreous body resulting from the high firing of paste containing barium sulphate. 1771 Wedgwood built a factory called Etruria , for the production of his ornamental vases. Later the manufacture of useful wares was also transferred.

(At this site his descendants carried on the business until 1940, when the factory was relocated at Barlaston , near Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire - the Etruria site was used as part of the " National Garden Festival " and Wedgwood's great house can still be seen as it has been incorporated into an hotel. 1774 Evidence of the popularity of Wedgwood's creamware is found in the massive service of 952 pieces made for Empress Catherine the Great of Russia 1775 Jasper's introduction in 1775 was followed by other wares such as: - rosso antico (red porcelain), cane, drab, chocolate, and olive wares. 1782 In 1782 Etruria was the first factory to install a steam-powered engine. After Wedgwood's death in Etruria on January 3, 1795, his descendants carried on the business, which still produces many of his designs.

Other relevant links BBC - History - Historic Figures: Josiah Wedgwood (1730 - 1795) Historic Figures z Josiah Wedgwood © Wedgwood was an innovative designer, a manufacturer of high-quality pottery and a campaigner for social reform. Josiah Wedgwood was born into a family of potters on 12 July 1730, at Burslem, Staffordshire. His father's death in 1739 led him to an early start working as a 'thrower' in the pottery of his eldest brother, Thomas, to whom he was later apprenticed. An attack of smallpox seriously weakened Josiah, and in 1768 he had to have his right leg amputated. This meant he was forced to abandon throwing, but he subsequently gained a wider insight into the potter's craft - for example the work of the 'modeller' - and this encouraged his love of experimentation. Thomas refused Josiah a partnership in the business, so the younger man moved first to a small pottery run by John Harrison, then more happily to the firm of Thomas Wheildon of Fenton.

From there, he opened works of his own, first at his cousin's Ivy House and later at the Brick House factory. At these works, Wedgwood made many models himself, and also prepared clay mixes. In June 1769, he opened a new factory at Etruria, near Stoke-on-Trent, in partnership with Thomas Bentley. Attached to the factory was a village where Wedgwood's workmen and their families could live in decent surroundings. Wedgwood greatly improved the clumsy ordinary crockery of the day, introducing durable, simple and regular wares. His cream coloured earthenware was christened 'Queen's Ware' after Queen Charlotte, who appointed him queen's potter in 1762. Other eminent patrons included Empress Catherine II of Russia, who ordered 952 such pieces in 1774. Wedgwood experimented with barium sulphate (caulk), and from it produced jasper, in 1773. Jasperware, which is used for a whole host of ornaments, blends metallic oxides, often blue, with separately moulded reliefs, generally white. Some such reliefs were designed for Wedgwood by John Flaxman.

Other wares included black basaltes, frequently enhanced by 'encaustic' colours like red, to imitate Greek vases. Wedgwood was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1783, primarily for inventing the pyrometer to measure oven temperatures. He took a keen interest, too, in efficient factory organisation, and in improving the transport of raw materials and finished wares by canals, such as the Grand Trunk Canal, and by road. In 1780, when Wedgwood's long-term business partner died, he asked his friend Erasmus Darwin for help. Darwin's son would later marry Wedgwood's daughter, and they were the parents of Charles Darwin, the naturalist who formulated the theory of evolution. Charles would himself, in turn, marry a Wedgwood. When Wedgwood died on 3rd January 1795 he left a thriving business and a fortune to his children.

The Wedgwood Company 250 years of Josiah Wedgwood 1st May 1759 - Ivy House Works, Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent 1st May 2009 - Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent Original Bottle Kiln Ovens, Wedgwoods, Etruria c.1952 photo: the Warrillow Collection Founded in 1759 in Stoke-on-Trent by Josiah Wedgwood. His family remained involved in the company for more than 150 years. Famous ware includes the Queenï¿½s Ware and Jasper ceramic ranges. After he manufactured a cream-coloured tea and coffee service for Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, she allowed him to style himself "Potter to Her Majesty" and to call his new cream ware Queen's Ware. Josiah also created Black Basalt, a fine black porcelain, which enabled him to produce copies of the newly excavated Etruscan pottery from Italy. His invention of a new stoneware called Jasper has been described as the most important development in the history of ceramics since the Chinese discovery of porcelain nearly 1,000 years earlier.

He employed many notable artists including George Stubbs to design bas-reliefs, often imitating classical Greek motifs. In 1766 he built a new factory in Staffordshire which he called Etruria, as well as a Georgian mansion, Etruria Hall, for his family. The opening of Etruria on 13 June 1769 was celebrated with the throwing of six so-called First Day's Vases. After Josiah invented the pyrometer, a device for measuring higher degrees of heat in kilns, he was elected to the Royal Society in 1783. His last major ceramic achievement was the Portland Vase, produced in 1789 - a facsimile of a famous Roman cameo glass vase known as the Barberini. The 19th century saw the introduction of the first coloured earthenware and the manufacture of bone china. Wedgwood provided a bone china dinner service ordered by US President Theodore Roosevelt for the White House. During the 1930s, the fifth Josiah Wedgwood decided to built a new, modern factory at Barlaston in Stoke-on-Trent. Production started in the 1940s and has continued at the site ever since.

Wedgwood merged with the well-known Irish brand Waterford Crystal in the 1980s to create Waterford Wedgwood. In January 2009 Waterford Wedgwood went into administration - it was purchased by KPS Capital in March 2009 and so the famous brand name was saved. Films Media Group - The Genius of Josiah Wedgwood Films Media Group Josiah Wedgwood Introduction (02:56) FREE PREVIEW Learn how the pottery genius embodies 18th century European Enlightenment. With a family history of Wedgwood factory work, A.N. Wilson will examine the inventor's life work through five different pots. Stoke-on-Trent Early Industry (01:51) Burslem was an undeveloped village when Wedgwood was born into a pottery family in 1730. The pots were made of locally sourced clay. New Consumerism (01:09) The British used modest wares until the mid-18th century, when a growing middle class demanded more elegant designs for tea and coffee sets.

Ivy Works (00:55) Working with dealers in London, Liverpool and Birmingham, Wedgwood set up his own company in Burslem in 1759. Collyflower Tea Pot, 1760 (01:32) Rustic designs were popular among the new urban middle class; a 1760 teapot represents Wedgwood's early marketing talent. Glaze samples show how he experimented with chemicals for coloring. Unitarian Values (01:28) Inhibited from operating a pottery wheel, Wedgwood focused on glazing, kiln technology, labor relations, and marketing. Learn how his dissident Christian upbringing encouraged a progressive, intellectual and moral outlook. Georgian Social Values (01:32) 18th century Britain was concerned with the class system, rather than religious beliefs. Although excluded from certain institutions, non-Anglicans were free to create their own culture. Creamware, 1760 (01:14) 5,000 glaze tests resulted in Wedgwood's color clarity. A cream pot illustrates his signature design quality.

American Pottery Demand (01:54) Learn how Wedgwood began marketing minimalist earthenware across the Atlantic in 1760, facilitated by Britain's liberal capitalist trading empire. Perfect White Glaze (01:52) Learn how Wedgwood created a glaze the color of snow—setting him apart from competition. He networked with London society to develop a sense of customer taste. Branding Wedgwood (01:21) Business historians explain why Wedgwood needed to distinguish his designs from other pottery makers. Forming a Business Partnership (02:29) In 1762, Wedgwood met distributor Thomas Bentley in Liverpool, gaining him access to the London gentry market. Learn how their skills and backgrounds complimented one another. Wedgwood's Marriage (01:44) As his business took off, Josiah's uncle allowed him to marry his cousin Sarah. Women retained partial financial independence 18th century Britain; marriages between cousins helped to keep money in the family. Queen's Tea Service (01:30) In 1865, Staffordshire potters competed for a winning design.

Recognizing the marketing opportunity, Wedgwood won the competition; view a similar gold leaf example. Queens' Ware (01:34) Wedgwood won permission to brand his pottery with the Royal name, gaining access to the aristocracy and guaranteed business success. Etruscan Vase, 1769 (01:17) By age 39, Wedgwood had become a household name but continued innovating. Learn why he began designing ornamental pottery inspired by neoclassical trends. Wedgwood Showrooms (01:12) Bentley opened galleries in London and Bath, pioneering staging techniques and developing the modern retail experience. Capitalizing on Neoclassical Trends (02:57) Wedgwood sent sample boxes of pottery to European nobility. Visit an 18th century German prince's estate copying English aesthetic and featuring his Etruscan line. Etruria Works (02:02) In 1769, Wedgwood moved into a new factory in Beslam, facilitating mass production. He provided worker's cottages and installed primitive air conditioning to improve their health. View Etruscan vases he threw on the opening day.

Wedgwood's Artistic Talent (02:56) At 40, Wedgwood was successful but still driven by creativity. A modern potter discusses how his work represents English ideals of perfection—and the human side of industrial production. Slave Medallion, 1787 (01:48) By the 1780s, the Wedgwoods had joined the English gentry. At 57, Josiah joined the abolitionist movement, inspired by Unitarian morality. Learn how a decorative medallion was designed to inspire social justice. Political Fashion Statement (01:21) Wedgwood distributed his decorative abolitionist medallions to Benjamin Franklin, allowing people to openly support the social justice cause. Jasperware (00:57) Wedgwood abandoned imitating Chinese porcelain to develop his own type of ceramics in 1775. He guarded its compositional formula closely for fear of industrial espionage. Pyrometer (01:53) Learn how Wedgwood invented a tool for perfecting kiln temperature. In 1780, he addressed British science enthusiasts at the Royal Society.

Lunar Men (02:10) Once a month, Wedgwood met with other free thinking inventors and scientists. Learn how their club contributed to the Industrial Revolution and Enlightenment. 18th Century Medicine (01:31) Josiah Wedgwood Josiah Wedgwood Born: 7/12/1730 Birthplace: Burslem, Staffordshire, England The man whose name is synonymous with fine china grew up surrounded by pottery. At the age of 14 he partnered with Thomas Whieldon and began to devise improved wares. He expanded the business, opening factories in Burslem (1759) and near Hanley (1769), which he called “Etruria”. His concern for the welfare of his workers inspired him to establish a village for them at Etruria. He took on marketing expert Thomas Bentley (1730–80), as partner (1768–80) and together they expanded the market for Wedgwood's wares using Bentley's new marketing techniques.

Wedgwood's later work is characterized by his invention of new processes and designs, including works featuring unglazed black basalt and his trademark blue jasper with raised designs in white. Died: 1/3/1795 Josiah Wedgwood facts, information, pictures | Encyclopedia.com articles about Josiah Wedgwood Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography COPYRIGHT 2008 Charles Scribner's Sons WEDGWOOD, JOSIAH (b. Burslem, England, 12 July 1730: d. Etruria. England. 3 January 1795). ceramic technology, chemistry. Wedgwood was one of the progressive British industrialists of the eighteenth century whose careers touched the world of science. His father, Thomas Wedgwood, was in the pottery business and his mother, Mary Stringer, was the daughter of a dissenting minister. When Wedgwood was nine years old his father died and, as a result, his schooling ended and his employment in the pottery of his brother Thomas began. Over the next eleven years Wedgwood mastered the skills of the potter; and after several partnerships he founded his own pottery in 1758.

His business affairs soon prospered as his tireless experimental efforts resulted in novel and improved products. In the 1770’s these efforts culminated in his greatest success, the jasper ware, which achieved exceptionally pleasant chromatic and textural effects, and which is the product generally brought to mind when “Wedgwood” is used as a description of ceramic products. During the 1760’s as Wedgwood enlarged his pottery works, he also built a worker’s village. which he named Etruria and where he made his home (Etruria Hall). In 1764 he married a distant cousin. Sarah Wedgwood, and the line of descendants (which includes the mother and wife of Charles Darwin) has to this day retained an interest in the Wedgewood potteries. Wedgwood’s position in eighteenth-century science rests on a few minor contributions to experimental chemistry, on his active associations with scientists and scientific societies, and on his general interest in experimental research. During the 1780’s he contributed three papers on the measurement of high temperature to the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London.

Depending on a property of clay that causes it to shrink as it is heated, the pyrometer (“thermometer for strong fire”) that Wedgwood described was seen by him as complementary to the mercurial thermometers that were used to measure low temperature. The device enjoyed some use and caught the interest of both Priestley and Lavoisier. Moreover, as an appendix to one of these papers (1783) Wedgwood described the series of experiments he conducted to evaluate Lavoisier’s proposal that heat could be measured by determining the quantity of ice that a warm body could melt. On several occasions Wedgwood supplied experimental apparatus (pyrometers, retorts, crucibles, and tubing) to various scientists (again including Priestley and Lavoisier) and corresponded with them on experimental procedures. In 1783 Wedgwood was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, but his most significant membership was in the Lunar Society of Birmingham, where he was associated with the foremost British chemists of the period. It was indeed the Lunar Society that reflected the changing structure of industry and technology and anticipated the transformation that saw the affiliation between technology and the crafts loosened in favor of a new affiliation between technology and science.

Wedgwood’s interest in experimental chemistry also showed itself in his business and personal affairs. Around 1775 he promoted (unsuccessfully) the formation of an experimental “company” to conduct research on the improvement of porcelain, and he both employed a chemist in his pottery and provided instruction in chemistry for his sons. Differences of opinion have recently sprung up over the significance of Wedgwood’s considerable interest in and knowledge of chemistry. That he read deeply and widely in the field and that he corresponded frequently with chemists on matters of research has been amply demonstrated. There are even indications that in a few instances his technical work on ceramics benefited from his knowledge of the experimental results of chemists. But. despite his habitual use of the terminology of contemporary (phlogiston) chemistry. Wedgwood had only the slightest interest in the cognitive structure of the science, and it seems to have contributed nothing to his industrial exploits. The meaning of his career is rather to be found in its clear statement that during the Industrial Revolution technical men were entering the world of research with the Baconian confidence that technology could learn from science. BIBLIOGRAPHY I. Original Works.

The articles that Wedgwood contributed to Philosophical Transactions of the royal Society of London are “An Attempt to Make a Thermometer for Measuring the Higher Degrees of Heat, From a Red Heat Up to the Strongest that Vessels Made of Clay Can Support,” 72 (1782), 305–326; “Some Exps. Upon the Ochra friabilis nigro fusca of Da Costa Hist. Foss. p. 102; and Called by the Miners of Derbyshire, Black Wadd,” 73 (1783), 284–287; “An Attempt to Compare and Connect the Thermometer for Strong Fire, Described in Vol.

LXXII of the Philosophical Transactions, With the Common Mercurial Ones,” 74 (1784), 358–384; “Additional Observations on Making a Thermometer for Measuring the Higher Degrees of Heat,” 76 (1786), 390–408 ; and “On the Analysis of a Mineral Substance From New South Wales,” 80 (1790), 306–320. Many Wedgwood documents are collected in the Wedgwood Museum maintained by Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Ltd., Barlaston, England. For published collections of Wedgwood’s letters, see Ann finer and George Savage, eds., The Selected Letters of Josiah Wedgwood (London, 1965); and Katherine Eufemia Farrer, ed., Letters of Josiah Wedgwood, 2 vols. (London, 1903). II. Secondary Literature. The standard biography of Wedgwood is Eliza Meteyard, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood, 2 vols.

(London, 1865-1866); this work cannot, however, be depended on for an evaluation of Wedgwood’s role in science. For an extensive survey of Wedgwood bibliography, see Gisela Heilpern. Josiah Wedgwood, Eighteenth-Century English Potter: A Bibliography (Carbondale, III., 1967). Wedgwood’s association with the Lunar Society is fully discussed in Robert E. Schofield. The Lunar Society of Birmingham (London, 1963): see esp. ch. 3 and. for bibliography, p. 455. For a minor dissent from the opinion that Wedgwood was a full member of the Lunar Society, see Eric Robinson, “The Lunar Society: Its Membership and Organization,” in Transactions. Newcomen Society for the Study of the History of Engineering and Technology, 35 (1964), 153–177. Many details of Wedgwood’s technical work are presented in Robert E.

Schofield, “Josiah Wedgwood and the Technology of Glass Manufacturing,” in Technology and Culture, 3 (1962), 285–297, and in the program of the Ninth Wedgwood International Seminar: April 23–25, 1964 (New York, 1971), 125–135, Accounts of Wedgwood’s role as a chemist are in Eric Robinson, “The Lunar Society and the Improvement of Scientific Instruments: II,” in Annals of Science, 13 (1957), 1–8; J.A. Chaldecott, “Scientific Activities in Paris in 1791,” ibid., 24 (1968), 21–52; and Robert E. Schofield, “Josiah Wedgwood and a Proposed Eighteenth-Century Industrial Research Organization,” in Isis, 47 (1956), 16–19. For differing appraisals of the relationship between Wedgwood’s chemistry and his technical work, see Robert E. Schofield, “Josiah Wedgwood.

Industrial Chemist,” in Chymia, 5 (1959), 180–192; A. Rupert Hall, “What Did the Industrial Revolution in Britain Owe to Science?,” in Neil McKendrick, ed., Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society (London. 1974), 129–151, esp. 141: Neil McKendrick, “The Role of Science in the Industrial Revolution: A Study of Josiah Wedgwood as a Scientist and Industrial Chemist,” in Mikuláš Teich and Robert Young,. eds., Changing Perspectives in the History of Science: Essays in Honour of Joseph Needham (London, 1973), 274–319: and J. A. Chaldecott, “Josiah Wedgwood (1730–95)— Scientist,” in British Journal for the History of Science, 8 . no. 28 (1975), 1–16. Harold Dorn Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. MLA COPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc.

Josiah Wedgwood The English potter Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) established the Wedgwood pottery factory. His work is most associated with the neoclassic style. Josiah Wedgwood was born in August 1730 at Burslem, Staffordshire, into a family which had been engaged in the manufacture of pottery since the 17th century. His father owned a factory called the Churchyard Pottery, and Josiah began working in this family enterprise as an apprentice in 1744. He left the factory in the early 1750s and until 1759 was engaged with various partners in the manufacture of standard types of earthenware, including salt-glaze and stoneware products and objects in the popular agate and tortoiseshell glazes. During these years he experimented with improving glazes in color, and he achieved a particularly refined green glaze. In 1759 Wedgwood set up his own factory at Ivy House in Burslem.

The Ivy House pottery was so successful that in 1764 he moved his factory to larger quarters nearby; the new factory was first known as the Brick House Works and later as the Bell House. During this period Wedgwood created his first creamware, a palecolored earthenware frequently decorated with painted or enameled designs. Wedgwood's creamware won the approval of Queen Charlotte and after about 1765 became known as "Queen's ware." During the first half of the 18th century the prevailing taste was for the rococo, a decorative style which used sensuous and delicate colors, lavish ornament, and a complex interplay of curved lines and masses. From about the middle of the century, however, the exuberant gaiety of the rococo began gradually to be replaced by neoclassicism and a return to the comparative severity of the art of antiquity. In the early 1760s Wedgwood met Thomas Bentley, a cultivated man devoted to neoclassicism, and in 1769 they opened a factory near Burslem which was called Etruria and dedicated to the creation of ornamental pottery designed in the neoclassic manner.

The factory at Bell House was retained for the production of functional tableware until the 1770s, when it was absorbed into Etruria. The two products of the Etruria factory which became most fashionable were the basaltes and the jasperware objects. The basaltes were decorative and functional pieces made of a hard black stoneware, often with lowrelief decoration, in designs based upon antiquity. The jasperware became the most famous of the Wedgwood products and is still the pottery most associated with the Wedgwood name. Jasperware, which Wedgwood perfected about 1775, is a fine stoneware with a solid body color in blue, soft green, lavender, pink, black, or other colors and generally decorated with delicate low-relief designs in white adapted from Greek vase paintings, Roman relief sculpture, and other antique sources. Jasperware was produced in a great variety of functional and decorative objects ranging from teapots to cameos and including vases, bowls, candlesticks, and portrait reliefs.

Bentley died in 1780, and Wedgwood continued the work at Etruria, producing some of the factory's finest jasper in the late 18th century. He employed many artists to provide designs for his products and to adapt designs from classical antiquity. The most notable of these modelers was John Flaxman, a famous sculptor who supplied designs for the Etruria factory from 1775 to 1800. From 1787 Flaxman was in Rome for several years studying antique sculpture and sending Wedgwood elegant interpretations of ancient art. Wedgwood died at Etruria on Jan. 3, 1795. His tombstone states that he "converted a rude and inconsiderable Manufactory into an elegant Art and an important part of National Commerce." The factory remains in the family and since 1810 has been known as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons. The modern factory is primarily concerned with the production of dinnerware and functional objects but continues to manufacture the jasper and basaltes that Josiah made so popular.

Further Reading An excellent account of Wedgwood's career and of the Wedgwood product in general is William B. Honey, Wedgwood Ware (1948), a brief but thorough and critical work with illustrations of high quality. Wolf Mankowitz and Reginald G. Hagger, The Concise Encyclopedia of English Pottery and Porcelain (1957), is handsomely illustrated, has an excellent bibliography, and contains basic information concerning Josiah Wedgwood and the Wedgwood family and factory. Older but still important standard biographies are Sir Arthur H. Church, Josiah Wedgwood, Master Potter (1903), and William Burton, Josiah Wedgwood and His Pottery (1922). Also useful is Wolf Mankowitz, Wedgwood (1953). Additional Sources The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright The Columbia University Press Josiah Wedgwood, 1730–95, English potter, descendant of a family of Staffordshire potters and perhaps the greatest of all potters.

At the age of nine he went to work at the plant owned by his brother Thomas in Burslem, and in 1751, with a partner, he started in business. In 1753 he joined Thomas Whieldon of Fenton, then one of the foremost potters of Staffordshire, and in 1759 Wedgwood started his own business at the Ivy House Works, Burslem. He obtained a site near Stoke-on-Trent, where he built a village called Etruria for his workers and opened a new works in 1769. In that year he took into partnership Thomas Bentley, who remained a valuable ally until his death in 1780. At Etruria, Wedgwood specialized in ornamental products to supplement the utilitarian wares of Burslem. Wedgwood entered the field of pottery at a time when it was still a backward and minor industry and by his skill, taste, and organizing abilities transformed it into one of great importance and enormous aesthetic appeal. He combined experiments in his art and in the technique of mass production with an interest in improved roads, canals, schools, and living conditions for workers.

Wedgwood soon acquired a reputation for his cream-colored earthenware, known as queen's ware, and at the same time produced decorative objects, candlesticks, and vases of a black composition known as basalt or Egyptian stoneware. He also produced a mottled and veined ware in imitation of granite and a translucent, smooth, unglazed semiporcelain. This gave way to his best-known product, jasper ware, best known in a delicate blue with white, cameolike Greek figures embossed upon it (see Portland vase ), which has been in continuous production since 1774. He invented and perfected this ware and in it gave expression to the interest of his day in the revival of classical art. He employed the best talent available for his finer pieces, many of which were designed by John Flaxman . Wedgwood's terra-cottas of various hues were made with one color in relief upon another. He produced exquisite wares for many royal and noble patrons, including a dinner service for Catherine the Great. His work is found in many museums and private collections; the Fogg Museum of Art, Cambridge, Mass., has an outstanding collection.

He also published several pamphlets, and his Address to the Young Inhabitants of the Pottery appeared in 1783. For his invention of a pyrometer for measuring temperatures, Wedgwood was made a fellow of the Royal Society (1783). The extensive potteries he established, which he built into a large, worldwide commercial empire, were perpetuated by his descendants. See W. Mankowitz, Wedgwood (1953); A. Kelly, The Story of Wedgwood (1962); E. Meteyard, The Life of Josiah Wedgwood (1865, repr. 1970); B. Dolan, Wedgwood: The First Tycoon (2004). Cite this article The Oxford Companion to British History © The Oxford Companion to British History 2002, originally published by Oxford University Press 2002. Wedgwood, Josiah (1730–95). Potter, industrialist, and social reformer, Wedgwood was born into a Staffordshire family of potters and was at work by the age of 9.

Shrewd and innovative in manufacture, design, and marketing, he capitalized on 18th-cent. fashion and snobbery, setting up on his own in 1758, and opening the great Etruria factory in 1769. Aware that ‘a name has a wonderful effect’, he presented his newly improved creamware to Queen Charlotte and obtained her permission to call it Queen's Ware, multiplying his sales in Britain and Europe . A notable commission came from Catherine the Great in 1774: a 952-piece service, now in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, decorated with exquisite and accurate detail of 18th-cent. houses and countryside. Wedgwood was keenly interested in the social and political problems of his day, much involved in road and canal development, and constantly reviewed the working and living conditions of his employees. His views were liberal/radical, he was sympathetic towards American independence in the 1770s, welcomed the French Revolution , and was a fervent supporter of the abolition of slavery. June Cochrane

Question: What was the name of Josiah Wedgwood's factory near Hanley?
Answer: ETRURIA